1654
The Barony of Dundalk

in

The
Down Survey

The distribution of the estates forfeited in consequence of the Rebellion of
1641, was primarily based on the Act passed in the English Parliament in the
17th year of Charles I. (1642). The occasion of the Act was the
want of money by the English Parliament for the purpose of carrying out its
military operations in the suppression of the Rebellion. It proceeded to
raise this money, by way of loan, by offering two and a half million acres
of the forfeited land as security: - Each person who adventured £200 to
receive one thousand acres in Ulster; for £300, one thousand acres in
Connaught; for £450, one thousand acres in Munster; and for £600, one
thousand acres in Leinster. The Act further declared that the rights,
titles, or interests which the rebels had in the land of Ireland on the 23rd
October, 1641, were forfeited and deemed the actual and real possession of
the King.

When the rebellion was subdued in 1652 the Commonwealth Parliament was
presented with a huge list of arrears of pay due to the army. And so another
Act was passed on the 27th of September, 1653, which provided for
the satisfaction of this debt also, out of the forfeited estates. This debt,
as a matter of fact, was mounting up to an enormous extent, and it was
decided to pay the soldiers back in land – this to be done prior to the
settlement of adventurers' claims.

The scheme under which the distribution of the land was to take place was
another subject of the Act. Commissioners were appointed for the purpose of
carrying out its direction. They were to have a survey made of the forfeited
lands, and to appoint a court for receiving and hearing claims.

Of
the earlier surveys made under this Act the Civil Survey was the more
important. Its purpose was the discovery and description of the forfeited
lands. From these discoveries and descriptions comprising the Civil Survey,
lists were made, and these subsequently supplied the surveyors who
admeasured and mapped the lands. This admeasurement and mapping is known as
the Down Survey.

The survey of what might be called the military counties was placed in the
hands of Doctor William Petty. Petty came to Ireland as a physician to the
Parliamentarian army. He was not only a physician but a great mathematician,
and he undertook the work on the discovery of inaccuracies in a previous
geometrical survey. In his agreement (dated 11th December, 1655)
with Benjamin Worsley, the General Surveyor, on behalf of the Commonwealth,
Petty contracted to protract and lay down the several parcels of land, with
their qualities, areas, metes, and bounds, in baronies, and to return
perfect and exact maps for public use of each barony and county. This survey
was completed in about thirteen months, and the distribution of the lands to
the officers and soldiers was completed about the autumn of 1656.

A
similar course was adopted as regards the satisfaction of the adventurers,
except that the survey of lands to be set out to them was not entrusted to
Petty alone. Dissatisfaction with Petty's work had been expressed by the
military claimants, and a joint survey was directed to be made by Benjamin
Worsley and William Petty.

This dual appointment of Benjamin Worsley and Doctor Petty to survey the
residue of the forfeited lands explained very largely the reason this survey
was called the Down Survey, and not, as might be imagined, Petty's survey,
or Petty and Worsley's survey.

Doctor Petty, it has been seen, was contractor only for the officers' and
soldiers' portion, while the adventurers' part was under joint management. A
name, therefore, common to both surveys was taken which, at the same time,
expressed the method of the survey, namely, "laying down" from the field
books on paper the measurement of the lands in area and form. From the
expressions "laying down" the Down Survey took its title, which was perhaps,
all things considered, the most appropriate and expedient. Moreover it not
only described the survey itself but distinguished it from the earlier
estimate surveys which were made by inquisition and not by chain and scale.

Abstracts from the Civil and Down Surveys were then made, divided into
counties and bound up in large volumes. These volumes were called
Distribution Books, and from them the list of forfeiture (to follow) in the
County of Louth is taken. In the first column the names of the persons who
were the owners of the land in 1641, and who forfeited, are given; the
second, the land in their possession; in the third, the names of the
adventurers, officers, soldiers, Innocent Papists, and others whose services
were rewarded by grants of land; and in the fourth, the acreage of the land
granted.

The appearance of the same person in many cases, in the first and third
columns, is explained by their having taken out either a Decree of Innocence
or by their holding mortgages or charges on the land. The patents granting
the lands to the new owners were made subject to these charges.

Those who claimed their innocence of having taken any part in the rebellion
appeared before the Court of Claims, proved their innocence, and produced
witnesses and documents to show their title to the lands they occupied. If
the court was satisfied it made a Decree confirming the title of the
claimants as it existed before the breaking out of the rebellion.

It
will be remembered that under an Ordinance of 1652, all persons of the
Catholic Religion who had not manifested their constant good affection to
the Commonwealth were forfeit one-third of their estates, and to be assigned
lands to the value of the other two-thirds where the Commonwealth should
appoint. Acting under the Ordinance of 1653 already referred to,
Commissioners held Courts at Athlone to determine the qualifications of the
Catholics, and made their Decrees accordingly. At Loughrea another set of
Commissioners set out the transplantation in Connaught and Clare on the
basis of these Decrees.

In
conclusion, it may be stated that the soldiers and adventurers were
confirmed in their estates by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation of
which the Down Survey was the basis. These Acts, together with the
"resolution of the doubts by the Lord Lieutenant and Council upon the Act of
Settlement and Explanation" formed the code under which the restoration
settlement was carried to a conclusion.

This barony was the inheritance, prior to the Anglo-Norman invasion, of the
O’Scanlon and O’Coleman chiefs. After the Anglo-Norman settlement it formed
the estates of the Taaffes, De Gernons, De Verdons and Dromgooles.

In
following the forfeitures made in 1641, the reader may meet along the way
many of his ancestors, with what feeling he, alone, can tell. ‘We wish to
discover out ancestors’, says Gibbon, ‘but we wish to discover them
possessed of ample fortunes, adorned with honourable titles and holding an
eminent rank in the class of hereditary nobles, which has been maintained
for the wisest and most beneficial purposes in almost every modification of
political society.’ Those who seek their ancestors in the research of the
Down Survey prior to the coming of the Cromwellians, will find many whose
inheritance entitled them to own eminent rank amongst the nobles of Louth.
But Cromwell had no respect for rank and he swept them away to Connaught in
order to make room for his own followers and favourites. And yet the very
families so dispossessed were the descendants of the Anglo-Norman settlers
who had, with the help of John de Courcy dispossessed the old Irish chiefs
and clans of Uriel, as Louth was known prior to being formed into an English
county by King John in A.D. 1210. The history of Louth was repeating itself:
its new owners were on the threshold of empty homes and deserted hearths,
and the land was silent as the grave.